Ascanio Celestini

In a despairing, fatalistic Rome, Nicola finds himself flirting with the city’s dark side. Drinking too much and living among drifters, petty criminals and anxious immigrants, Nicola becomes entwined in an insurance scam that leads him further into a netherworld he may never escape.

In a despairing, fatalistic Rome, Nicola finds himself flirting with the city’s dark side. Drinking too much and living among drifters, petty criminals and anxious immigrants, Nicola becomes entwined in an insurance scam that leads him further into a netherworld he may never escape.

In a despairing, fatalistic Rome, Nicola finds himself flirting with the city’s dark side. Drinking too much and living among drifters, petty criminals and anxious immigrants, Nicola becomes entwined in an insurance scam that leads him further into a netherworld he may never escape.

It’s a model story, an extraordinary adventure, a tale of revolutionary practice and tension, among anarchy and irony, simplicity, curiosity and vitality throughout the whole of Europe, its wars and the social struggles of the 1900s. A tale on how to live all in one breath, responsibly, diving into contradictions, "getting one's hands dirty", and still keeping one's balance between theory and practice.˝

Nicola is a man who has spent much of his life in a mental institution, though not always as a patient. Nicola's mother suffered from mental illness, and when young Nicola grew old enough to understand some of her stranger behavior as well as the family's other dark secrets, a few of the adults around him preferred to suggest he was disturbed like his mother, and he was encouraged to visit an asylum not far from his home. As an adult, Nicola has spent enough time around people who have a tenuous connection with reality that he has a superficial resemblance to them, and has developed a strange set of imaginary friends to go along with his eccentric real-life companions and the woman he loves from afar, Marinella.

Nicola is a man who has spent much of his life in a mental institution, though not always as a patient. Nicola's mother suffered from mental illness, and when young Nicola grew old enough to understand some of her stranger behavior as well as the family's other dark secrets, a few of the adults around him preferred to suggest he was disturbed like his mother, and he was encouraged to visit an asylum not far from his home. As an adult, Nicola has spent enough time around people who have a tenuous connection with reality that he has a superficial resemblance to them, and has developed a strange set of imaginary friends to go along with his eccentric real-life companions and the woman he loves from afar, Marinella.

Nicola is a man who has spent much of his life in a mental institution, though not always as a patient. Nicola's mother suffered from mental illness, and when young Nicola grew old enough to understand some of her stranger behavior as well as the family's other dark secrets, a few of the adults around him preferred to suggest he was disturbed like his mother, and he was encouraged to visit an asylum not far from his home. As an adult, Nicola has spent enough time around people who have a tenuous connection with reality that he has a superficial resemblance to them, and has developed a strange set of imaginary friends to go along with his eccentric real-life companions and the woman he loves from afar, Marinella.

Nicola is a man who has spent much of his life in a mental institution, though not always as a patient. Nicola's mother suffered from mental illness, and when young Nicola grew old enough to understand some of her stranger behavior as well as the family's other dark secrets, a few of the adults around him preferred to suggest he was disturbed like his mother, and he was encouraged to visit an asylum not far from his home. As an adult, Nicola has spent enough time around people who have a tenuous connection with reality that he has a superficial resemblance to them, and has developed a strange set of imaginary friends to go along with his eccentric real-life companions and the woman he loves from afar, Marinella.

Nicola is a man who has spent much of his life in a mental institution, though not always as a patient. Nicola's mother suffered from mental illness, and when young Nicola grew old enough to understand some of her stranger behavior as well as the family's other dark secrets, a few of the adults around him preferred to suggest he was disturbed like his mother, and he was encouraged to visit an asylum not far from his home. As an adult, Nicola has spent enough time around people who have a tenuous connection with reality that he has a superficial resemblance to them, and has developed a strange set of imaginary friends to go along with his eccentric real-life companions and the woman he loves from afar, Marinella.

Nicola is a man who has spent much of his life in a mental institution, though not always as a patient. Nicola's mother suffered from mental illness, and when young Nicola grew old enough to understand some of her stranger behavior as well as the family's other dark secrets, a few of the adults around him preferred to suggest he was disturbed like his mother, and he was encouraged to visit an asylum not far from his home. As an adult, Nicola has spent enough time around people who have a tenuous connection with reality that he has a superficial resemblance to them, and has developed a strange set of imaginary friends to go along with his eccentric real-life companions and the woman he loves from afar, Marinella.

Garage owner Angelo and big-time film producer Alberto find themselves occupying neighbouring beds in a Rome hospital after suffering heart attacks. Alberto is a gregarious joker - and chain smoker - who has a strong effect on the impressionable Angelo. However, as one of the men's condition deteriorates, the other becomes more deeply involved in his personal life.

Accio and Manrico are two working-class brothers in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, womanizing, and loved by all, while younger Accio is moody, hotheaded, and lives everything as if it was a war, much to his parents' chagrin. When the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite. His flimsy beliefs are put to test when he meets Manrico's like-minded girlfriend, falling in love with her.

Monologue about the Ardeatine massacre, a mass killing carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome against the SS Police Regiment Bozen.